A Mile Through the Rain

We had some "weather" the other week. Not like now, which somehow turned from too hot (85) to something resembling "glorious" (76, slight breeze). We had rain!

And I know people all across this nation would like to throttle us Angelinos right now, but we don't make the weather. Well, in the grand scheme with the carbon dumping and all...

Anyway, I was curious about this strange phenomena, this wet precipitation falling from the sky at all angles. I can tell someone who doesn't live here that we've had approximately five days of rain in the past nine months, and I am confident in my estimation.

The reason I'm so confident is that I don't drive a car to go about my life, so I'm acutely attuned to the visceral nature of the weather. When you're on a bike or hoofing it on foot, you remember when it rains. It's a major part of your planning for those days.

So, last Friday was a rain day. This was a great opportunity for me to figure some things out about rain, eh, make that Rain. What better way to get to know an elemental like Rain than by trudging through more than a mile of it on foot? Just the prospect of the adventure excited me...

One thing I learned about Rain is that it's never a uniform fall rate. Perhaps it can be under particular conditions, but I doubt that happens often at all. What I mean is that different sections had a different character of droplets--different volumes, shapes, velocities, angles of incidence, and per-unit-volumes.

Imagined like a three-dimensional loaf of damp Earth-surface, it was heterogeneous nearly down to the cubic inch, which has a nice fractal-quality to it, but it hard to represent in a graphic.

I had ample time to ponder the physical qualities, temperament, and attitude of the weather front during my six-thousand foot walk through it on that Friday morning. Only the outside of my pants suffered any wetness related unpleasantness, and that went away over the subsequent few hours anyway.

Are people less connected to their surroundings nowadays? I'm sure that depends more on whatever frame of reference you're using, and then we've got motivations on why that specific frame was used...oh well.

Rain walking and Rain acquainting was a success. Gettin' m' Learn on!